There And Back Again (A Couchsurfing Tale)

A few weeks ago I accepted a Couchsurfer to stay at my place for a week. She was to arrive Friday the 20th. The day arrived and I checked my email to see that I had missed a message asking me for my exact address. I rushed to send it to her but I was worried because in her email she also told me that she didn’t have a working phone or computer. I sent her a bunch of messages giving her detailed instructions to my place using different methods of transportation as well as my Wechat ID and my phone number. How is she going to read my emails though? I wondered.  I felt horrible, the email was three days old! I should have responded earlier! I left to do some shopping, hoping she was intrepid enough to be able to find some working electronic device on which to get my messages. I’d told her I’d meet her at my subway station at 4 pm unless I heard otherwise.

All morning as I sat on the bus, bought my painting supplies, took the bus back, I was checking my Couchsurfing messages over and over. At 3:50 I got to the train station and realized I had another problem. I’d told her to meet me at exit B but I wasn’t sure whether she would meet me inside or outside. My subway stop has a long three story staircase that you have to walk down and an escalator you can take up. It’s very steep and the escalator makes it hard to see whose coming up. I thought it would be easier for me to spot her at the bottom so I walked down and waited.  And waited. But she didn’t come. An hour later I went home disappointed and made dinner in case she was starving when she arrived (notice that hope is still present at this point. Oh how naive…). I was still glued to my phone just in case, but no message came, so I ate alone. Finally, I got a response on Couchsurfing. She doesn’t have Wechat, but she was on her way. For some reason she couldn’t call me but she was at ShuangJing station and trying to figure out the fastest way to get to my station. I gave her directions and then pushed my half-finished soup aside to rush to the subway station for the second time that day. Running down the stairs my foot slipped (I can’t remember which one) and I fell onto the closest landing, twisting my left ankle.

For a few seconds I just sat there holding my ankle. I couldn’t believe that I had tripped. I’d never tripped before. All I could think was: I’ve skipped down these steps hundreds of times. Wearing these same shoes. WTF? What is going on with my life? Why am I even here? Alone. In China. Killing myself? The pain was less terrible than the shock of it, but it still hurt. At that moment a couple passed me on the stairs.  They are young-ish, maybe mid thirties, and as they passed the man turned to look at me. As soon as our eyes meet I started tearing up. Was this man just going to stare at me and walk on, as Chinese people usually do whenever they see me? Was I going to have to add embarrassment to my list of injuries before standing up and hobbling to meet and take care of someone else?

For a second I thought the man was about to turn away. But then he didn’t. “Are you ok?” he asked, in English (!!). I nodded my head and started wiping my wet eyes but I was so relieved to have not been left on the floor that I couldn’t stop tearing up. He asked me if I fell and I nodded. He took my hand, helped me up and then walked with me, still holding my hand, to the bottom of the stairs. His wife didn’t seem to speak as much English as he did and I could hear him explaining to her what had happened as we slowly made our descent. He asked if there was someone I could call and I told him I was meeting someone, thanking him in English and Chinese. They walked through the turnstile and disappeared. I stood next to the exit and waited, faith in humanity, and my decision to live in such a foreign place, restored.

Restored and then slowly worn away as I waited, and waited, and waited. After 45 minutes I decided to check the Couchsurfing website to see if she left me a new message, and there it was. “[O]k make a relaxing evening, a guy from cs (who saw my publictrip picked me up). i was afraid the last days that you are very busy because you didn’t respond. i hope you are not angry now :-(. if you like we can meet tomorrow, i am so sorry for this chaos but without internet it is sometimes complicated. i was already on the way to the metro as he picked me up.”*

WHAT. THE. FUCK. Are you kidding me? You’re ditching me because *you’ve* had a tough day? After getting all the information I gave you, you couldn’t find anyone to let you use their phone to make a phone call to ask me to meet you somewhere else? After you chose to go with someone else you couldn’t use HIS phone to call me and tell me to stop waiting?

After thinking about that for a few minutes I limped home under my own private rain cloud, reheated my soup (on the stove), and spent the rest of the night moping. In an attempt to be the better person I replied to her message letting her know it was no problem. I told her I’d still be up for meeting and if she needed anything she could call me.  I didn’t get a reply for four days. When it finally arrived it said, “hey, i was so busy the last days. i didnt had time to write you, that i am busy. thank you for your offer.”

Oh, the irony.

* A short note: the woman  was to host did not speak English as her first language. Copying her message verbatim is not an attempt to make fun of her writing skill but to accurately represent events as they happened.